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U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Hazleton, left, talks with one of his constituents, Martin Johnson of Hazleton, on Thursday in front of one of the many Hispanic businesses along Broad Street, Hazleton.

Hazleton is a different city from seven years ago when national news crews arrived and crowds lined up outside City Hall to shout opinions about an immigration law.

When proposing the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, then-Mayor Lou Barletta sought to make Hazleton the toughest city in America for undocumented residents.

Some undocumented residents reportedly left Hazleton as soon as Barletta suggested the law, but courts stopped the law from taking effect.

Since then, people moved in, not out of, Hazleton.

The 2010 Census showed that Hazleton's population increased by more than 2,000, the first gain in 70 years. An influx of Latinos, who now make up 37 percent of the city's population, led the growth.

"They started buying cars and fixing houses so Lowe's and other businesses started flourishing, and they started paying taxes to the city," said Dr. Agapito Lopez, an opponent of the city's immigration law.

As the population changed, so did relationships between the Latino and Anglo communities, compared to when the law was proposed.

"The feelings were so raw on both sides, and there was certainly a greater sense of mistrust than we see today," Bob Curry said.

Curry heads an effort to build a youth center for the Hazleton Integration Project of city native and Major League Baseball manager Joe Maddon. More people donated money, Curry believes, and offered to volunteer for the center, which will serve children of all ethnicities, now than would have offered to help seven years ago during the fight about the law.

The fight reached its height on July 13, 2006, when people carrying flags and signs for and against the law filled council chambers, spilled onto the steps of City Hall and jammed sidewalks of North Church Street.

Coverage of the issue put Barletta and the city on CBS News' "60 Minutes" and CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight." Radio programs and newspaper articles spread stories about Hazleton's law around the world.

Today, the fight continues in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia. While judges there ruled the law unconstitutional in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered them to reconsider the case in view of a decision upholding an Arizona law. Laws in both Hazleton and Arizona penalize employers who knowingly hire undocumented residents, whereas Hazleton's law also would punish landlords for renting to undocumented tenants.

The nation no longer pays much attention to the outcome of the Hazleton case, although cities and states that considered enacting immigration laws might have prodded Congress to re-think the issue.

Last week, a group of senators and President Barack Obama proposed comprehensive changes to national immigration policy. Their proposals include giving the estimated 11 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants a way to become legal residents, but the policy-makers also seek tighter borders, easier ways for employers to verify the immigration status of job applicants and an overhaul of procedures that bring immigrants to America legally.

Barletta, who sponsored the law to lessen the expense that undocumented residents put on the police, schools and the hospital in Hazleton, moved with the debate to Washington.

Now starting his second term in Congress, he represents Pennsylvania's 11th District. A Republican, Barletta said he is ready to challenge leaders of his own party who would offer legal status to undocumented residents, a policy that he calls amnesty.

"That's what he's known for: the immigration stance," said Joseph Yannuzzi, who succeeded Barletta as mayor and continued defending the city's immigration law in appeals court. "He'll never support anything that resembles amnesty."

In the last two elections for Congress, Barletta's views about immigration haven't seemed to hurt him, Yannuzzi said.

As the years passed, feelings about immigration have become less intense in Hazleton, Yannuzzi thinks.

"The melting pot - I can see things happening and changing, but not to the point where it's completely melted," Yannuzzi said.

Last week, Barletta, citing a Heritage Foundation report from 2007, said most undocumented Latinos have low skills and might not have graduated from high school. He believes they will support Democratic candidates, who promise social welfare programs, while Republicans led by Sen. John McCain said their party has to start courting the votes of Latinos with more lenient immigration policies.

Amilcar Arroyo, publisher of the Spanish language newspaper Molinegocios USA in Hazleton, said he will suggest that Barletta stop making comments like that about Latinos.

"And he is a good friend of mine," Arroyo added.

"The GOP party knows they have to be a little bit more open-minded," Arroyo said. "The Latino electorate is growing. If they are more friendly, they can get a piece of the cake."

Victor Perez of the Dominican House of Hazleton, a group that challenged Hazleton law, wonders if Barletta is stuck in the past.

"His mind is in the same time when he was fighting â¦ We can't continue in 2006. We don't want to talk about that," said Perez, who instead wants to discuss "what we can do to fix the problem."

Perez said Dominican House leads classes that help legal immigrants earn citizenship. Tutors all have college degrees, and the class materials, offered in English and Spanish, include a quote from President Harry S. Truman, who said being an American is about more than knowing where you and your parents came from. "It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break."

"If we are equal, why is Mr. Barletta talking like we are not equals?" Perez said.

He said he can understand why the federal government might want to deport "the bad apples," but "what are you going to do with the millions of good apples?"

Franklin Rivera, interviewed downtown during a day off from a plastics plant where he works in the Humboldt Industrial Park, said people share the same ambitions regardless of their immigration status.

"There's a lot of them working pretty much the same as us," Rivera said.

He knows one undocumented worker, trained as a dentist, who lived in the state for 12 years and is scared to go out after work. He sends money to his home country.

Rivera questioned the wisdom of spending tax dollars to find and deport a worker like that, who, if given legal status, would pay taxes and invest more in America, Rivera said.

Those who work "under the table, get cash. The states don't need that. Without the taxes, we don't have cops, firemen," he said.

Both Barletta and Yannuzzi have said Hazleton's taxes haven't grown with the population, suggesting some of the new residents aren't paying taxes.

Rivera moved to Hazleton seven years ago, and he and his wife are shopping for a house for their small children.

"I loved this town as soon as I came," he said. "A lot of Spanish people here do a lot of work. A lot of things are actually getting made."

Anna Arias, who spoke against the law at a city council meeting in 2006, said people left Hazleton then.

She knew one family that owned homes and a business, but decided to move.

"They felt hurt. They felt they were not welcome because they were a different race," Arias said.

If the court were to uphold Hazleton's immigration law now, Arias wouldn't expect as many people to depart.

"I believe people are less afraid than they were before," she said.

City Council President James Perry has noticed that Latinos participate in city government more now than seven years ago.

"On more than one occasion, they've come to speak â¦ but others have come to me or talked to me at various events," Perry said. "Everybody wants the city to be a better place and wants to work to that end."

When courts ultimately make their final ruling on Hazleton's law, Perry thinks rules about renting and working will become clearer.

"I would hope that would bring us together instead of apart," he said.

The Rev. Douglas McKeeby, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Hazleton, thinks changes to national immigration policy proposed in Washington could trump Hazleton's law, which he opposed.

"It almost seems Congress will make the efforts moot. With the financial condition of the city, they should think about dropping it," McKeeby said.

So far, the city has paid legal bills with donations collected through a website, www.smalltowndefenders.com.

If the Third Circuit court rules against Hazleton, the judges also might order the city to pay legal bills for the American Civil Liberties Union, LatinoJustice PRLDEF and other challengers.

"I believe the average person in Hazleton is going to be paying the bill," said Jose Rodriguez, president of the Concerned Parents of the Hazleton Area.

Rodriguez thinks most of the Latinos living in Hazleton are not immigrants, but migrants from New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia who have citizenship or legal resident status.

"They were running to Hazleton from the big city," he said. "Rents were cheaper. Food was cheaper. In New York City if you don't make $1,000 a week, you're not going to be able to survive."

The dedication of 60 to 70 adults who learn English by attending classes that the Concerned Parents teach weekly from September to May attests to the desire of the migrants to improve their living conditions and their commitment to Hazleton, he said.

Through the efforts of volunteer instructors and leaders, the Concerned Parents also offer classes for would-be citizens and run a children's program that provides help with homework and field trips on Saturdays.

Since the immigration law was proposed, Anglos and Latinos have grown closer, Rodriguez said.

"In the long run, I believe Hazleton just became a stronger city. That's why the Concerned Parents are able to attract all these Anglos as volunteers," he said.

While attempting to start the youth center through the Hazleton Integration Project, Curry said he uses the Concerned Parents, where uses Anglos and Latinos teach together, as a model.

"The No. 1 difference is simply people have gotten used to living next to and working next to people of different heritages. That doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that our society has become fully integrated, but the possibility now becomes very real," he said.

Curry said Barletta has been "wonderfully supportive" of the integration project's efforts to open a youth center.

"That might surprise a number of people. Congressman Barletta understands the importance of what we're doing in terms of providing a vast array of healthy choice opportunities for children of all ethnic groups and giving kids alternatives to the so-called life on the streets," Curry said.

"When you get those kids playing together and working toward common goals, you will see what we already know is a universal truth, and that is that the differences between us are much smaller than the similarities we share as human beings."

Anne Marie Shelby, a volunteer with the Concerned Parents, started focusing on similarities between the groups when her parish, Holy Annunciation at St. Gabriel's Roman Catholic Church in Hazleton, began offering some Masses in Spanish.

She doesn't speak Spanish, but figured the Spanish Masses wouldn't be harder to follow than the Latin Masses that she attended as a girl. The booklet in the pews includes an English translation.

"They brought in a Spanish priest with guitar players on Sunday night. I would go because the Mass was absolutely beautiful, and I enjoyed the music â¦ They celebrate life. They celebrate their religion, which is wonderful to see," Shelby said.

"I say the people I know couldn't be nicer to me or more respectful to me."

If her new friends don't speak English, Shelby doesn't worry.

Her grandmother spoke Tyrolean.

"Everyone else came here for a better life," Shelby said. "People have forgotten their grandparents might not have spoken English."

kjackson@standardspeaker.com, 570-455-3636

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